Live 4 The LORD

 “Nothing that goes into a man from the outside can make him unclean”: “The Kingdom of God,” as Christ tells us in the Gospel, “is within you.” Consequently, all that wars against the Kingdom is also within us. Number 405 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that original sin is a “deprivation of original holiness and justice.” It states that human nature has been “wounded in the natural powers proper to it,” and that it is subject to “ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death; and inclined to sin—an inclination to evil that is called ‘concupiscence.’” This concupiscence causes all sorts of disordered tendencies to surface from within us. These disordered tendencies—if accepted—are, as our Lord tells us, what defiles a man. Our holiness and purification must start from within (in ordering our thoughts and desires according to the Gospel standard) and rise to the surface in concrete deeds of goodness (in words and actions). Where does concupiscence do the most damage in my life?